urban Archives - Page 3 of 14

August 18, 2014

wandering in Adelaide's Flinder's St precinct

Ari and I wandered around the Flinders Street/Hutt Street/Pirie area. We started out from The Mill in Angas Street where I’d been to see a photographic exhibition about the sea by Che Chorley.

It has been ages since we’ve walked around this area and it has changed. This precinct is being redeveloped and it has become much more residential.

A large section of the precinct is being redeveloped as executive style high rise apartments–known as the Art Apartments in the Flinders precinct. These are being developed by Guava Lime in association with the architects Loucas Zahds. It will be followed by another residential development known as Zen 2.

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August 12, 2014

a laneway culture in Adelaide?

Adelaide’s city centre is traditionally empty outside of business hours. Suburban malls have lured a lot of retail out of the city, and there are very few people living in the core. It had, and still has, a dull city core.

People are slowly returning to the city centre to live. Will the small bars, that are starting to set up all over the city help to bring people back to the city as they did in Melbourne? Will a fine-grain laneway culture develop in Adelaide as it did in Melbourne?

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August 10, 2014

urban renewal?

Ari and I wandered around Adelaide’s Chinatown the other morning. It’s expanding and it is attracting more people to the Central Market precinct. This is one area of Adelaide that is lively and it is largely due to the Asian students.

It makes such a contrast to the ever-increasing empty retail shops and offices in my neighbourhood, which I find depressing. So many buildings stand empty.

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July 21, 2014

Peter Drews: Asylum seeker street art

When Ari and I were walking Adelaide’s CBD last week I couldn’t help but notice the asylum seeker street art of Peter Drews scattered around the city. I only saw about 4-5 of the 36 that Drews had put up over a period of two weeks in early June. Some property owners were not pleased.

The posters are simply constructed around the individual stories of refugees and asylum seekers, both in detention and on bridging visas, that subvert the politicised stereotypes in the “stop the boats” narrative in main stream media.

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July 5, 2014

the more things change ….

In the last week or so Ari and I on our afternoon poodle walks have been wandering around the north western part of Adelaide’s CBD near the western campus of the University of South Australia. This is an area of the CBD that is marked for substantial re-development flowing from the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and the associated buildings that are currently being built.

There is little sign of the promised residential re-development happening:

The theory is that people will want to live in the area when they work in the hospital/university precinct. More people in the area leads to small businesses to provide services for the residents, workforce and students. All I can see is lots of car parks not high rise residential towers.

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June 28, 2014

at Port Adelaide

Ari and I wandered around Port Adelaide after I had coffee with Dani McLean at the Red Lime Shack. The Ball of Light exhibition by Denis Smith at the Forge Warehouse wasn’t open so I took the opportunity to see what was happening with the redevelopment of the Port.

The Sawtooth building has a photo by Dani of its interior stuck on its outside wall:

Nothing much has happened in terms of redevelopment.

Many of the gracious old heritage builds in the Port stand empty with no tenants. Urban Construct, the developer of the new apartment buildings along the river, has gone leaving the redevelopment unfinished. The government had stripped Urban Construct of its contract to develop the Newport Quays precinct in October 2011.

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June 18, 2014

the conservative prescription for Adelaide

As Ari and I wander around the CBD I cannot help but noticing how lively the city of Adelaide is becoming as a result of the state Labor government and the Adelaide City Council’s attempts to make the CBD a more vibrant place to live.

So it is with some dismay that I read the two Liberal candidates for Lord Mayor–Mark Hamilton and Michael Henningsen— are intent on rolling back the gains because we have lost our pride in Adelaide.

Between them these two candidates want more cars in the city; they want to do away with bike and bus lanes; they are opposed to high rise apartments; see the attempts to make the CBD a more vibrant place (eg., the upgrade to Victoria Square) as flawed and self-indulgent; and they want to return council to refocus on repairing the streets i.e. to focus on the traditional roads, rates and rubbish.

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June 17, 2014

pavement art

On a recent poodlewalk Ari and I stumbled upon a trail of pavement art that started from the Sturt St Community School. We followed it along Wilcox St to the children’s playground on South Terrace in the southern part of the Adelaide parklands. I would expect that the trail of brightly painted insects would be very popular with the local community.

Since Sturt St was where the trial of a separated bicycle lane was a failure it was good to see something to liven up the neglected south western corner of Adelaide.

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June 15, 2014

foggy Adelaide

It was quite foggy in the Adelaide early this morning when Ari and I went walking around the CBD. As most of the car parks are closed early on a Sunday morning it was difficult to find an elevated view of the CBD. We eventually found one with the lifts working, and I was able to take a few snaps before the fog lifted.

The fog didn’t last that long once the sun rose above the Adelaide Hills.

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June 12, 2014

car congestion in Adelaide

Adelaide’s traffic congestion has been steadily increasing over the past decade and it will continue to do so over the next decade. The problem is that there are too many cars on the roads. The RAA’s solution is to build bigger and better arterial roads whilst the Property Council’s main policy appears to be to not have a car park tax. Adelaide’s city property sector often ties cheap car parking to successful commercial and retail models.

Both solutions increase Adelaide’s dependency on cars and ignore how congestion would be a disaster for the city economy and social well-being of its residents. It is often quite unpleasant to walk around the city on a poodle walk.

The city of Adelaide supports a heavily car dependent metropolitan workforce, in fact it is one of the most car dependent in the western world whilst its car parking is the cheapest and most plentiful by far of Australia’s major capitals.

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